Harassed from their beds by ghosts, our students had begun going about their day. Last night’s winnings had been enough for those of us who’d fought to pay our agreed upon tuition. That ensured we’d be able to buy enough element that we could get back to practicing our spells.
“That room over there is set aside for life magic, but we don’t yet have someone who knows any of those. We’ve got one dwarf from that realm, but all his magic is offensive earth spells.”
“Life magic is my deficiency.” Dathka wasn’t so much admitting a weakness, as insulting an entire branch of magic. “Healers are weak. Inflicting wounds is a far more valuable skill than repairing them.”
It was an immutable law of magic that every mage had an affinity to one element, that they could instinctively cast at a much higher level, and that affinity usually corresponded to the realm of their heritage. But we also had a correspondingdeficiency in something else, where no matter how hard we tried, we’d only be able to cast spells of that element at a much lower level.
For example, Azarin was brilliant with air magic, but was so talentless at fire, it took a pile of Red for her to barely make sparks. Meanwhile, fire came naturally to me, and those spells were stronger and took less effort to cast. I didn’t know what my deficiency was, as I’d not had a chance to play with all of the elements yet, but from my struggles to accomplish anything with earth, I suspected that was it.
“Up there is the male dormitory. I’d avoid that if I were you.”
“It smells of reptiles.”
“Thank you, Trax. This big area ahead is for combat training.” There were a few students there already working, probably in anticipation of our adventure. That made me happy, because I was trying to impress this woman with our professionalism. But, of course, when we walked by, Danny had dropped a war hammer on his toe, and was hopping about on one foot, while Rufus laughed and Krachma called him names in Lobbish.
“Over there’s the death practice room. We do have a bit of that.”
“Yes, I noticed you used anObscuraagainst me.”
“We got that from Rade.”
“It is a common enough parlor trick in our realm.”
“It worked great on you…” It made me happy to see her frown at that. “And up there at the far end is the fire room, which is something of my specialty.”
“Oh really. Then show me what you’re working on that’s so special.”
“I’d rather not.”
“Why? Are you afraid your academy’s best isn’t that impressive?”
She was trying to provoke me into showing off, probably so she could know the rest of my tricks should we fight again in the future. “Sorry. That’s proprietary information. Outcasts only.”
“What kind of hotlander’s afraid of playing with fire? I dare you.”
That was insulting my pride, but I wasn’t played that easily. “How about a trade? You show me yours, I’ll show you mine.”
“You pig.”
“Don’t flatter yourself, deadlander. I’ll show you the new fire spell I’m working on—no formula, just a demonstration—if you purge the rogue Elemental spirt from the earth room.”
She mulled that over. “You have a deal.”
I pointed at Trax. “He’s our witness that you promised.”
As usual, Trax clearly didn’t understand what was going on. “Should I record this as part of my secretary duties?”
“That noise in your head was him saying he’ll hold you to it.”
“I’ll happily spit on your grave, Carnavon, and even put you in it, but I would never disrespect such a lethal emissary of the Squalo Empire. Demonstrate your spell and, in return, I’ll show you how to cast a simplePurge.”
If you can’t trust a gang assassin to keep her word, then who can you trust? I sent my light charm ahead into the fire room to hover over the metal workbench. The bullets I’d been working on before leaving for the arena were still there, because every student here knew better than to screw with my stuff. Normally, we didn’t leave anything flammable in here, but the paper cases, gun powder, and target were necessary for this experiment.
“A few months ago, I got to watch a really impressive duel between two very powerful wizards. Haddar versus Adderlane, two deadly titans locked in a battle to the death. Adderlane was an enchanter, like me, and you too, I believe, if the arena announcer was accurate.”
“He was,” Dathka grudgingly admitted, not liking to even give up that much information which might later be used against her.
“So us enchanters do the best by attaching our spells to some kind of object. This enchanter attached a variety of offensive spells to bullets. I like guns and I like magic, so I asked myself why can’t I use guns as a delivery system for spells myself?”
